14 Facts About Mia Zapata

Mia Katherine Zapata was an American musician who was the lead singer for the punk band The Gits.

Mia Zapata was raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended high school at Presentation Academy.

In 1984, Mia Zapata enrolled at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio as a liberal arts student.

Mia Zapata came from an affluent family but often lived without material comforts.

Around 2 am on July 7,1993, Mia Zapata left the Comet Tavern in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle.

Mia Zapata stayed at a studio space in the basement of an apartment building located a block away, and briefly visited a friend who lived on the second floor.

Mia Zapata is interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in her hometown of Louisville.

In 2003, Florida fisherman Jesus Mezquia, who had come from Cuba in 1980 in the Mariel boatlift, was arrested and charged in connection with Mia Zapata's murder based on DNA evidence.

The prosecution theory was that he saw Mia Zapata leave the bar and followed her a short distance before he attacked her.

Mia Zapata's headphones covered her ears so she would have been unaware of any danger until he grabbed her and dragged her to his car, where he assaulted her in the back seat.

Mia Zapata's death caused a sense of defeat and fear within the Seattle community.

Mia Zapata is often cast as a symbol for feminist activism, a martyr, and an angel.

Mia Zapata's murder was the subject of the episode "The Day the Music Died" of the television series Forensic Files.

Mia Zapata was featured in second season, episode 2 in the Discovery ID show Dead of Night.